38.2 Floors in a Building

To refer to a specific floor in a building (e.g., the second floor, the third floor), we first say the floor number and then the word 樓 lau2 (‘floor’) or 層 cang4 (‘floor’). 第 dai6 is the prefix for ordinal numbers (as in 第一 dai6 jat1 ‘first’, 第二 dai6 ji6 ‘second’). When using 樓 lau2, we can add 第 dai6 before the floor number, but we more often don’t. When using 層 cang4, we usually add 第 dai6 before the floor number. Note that we use 二 ji6 instead of 兩 loeng5 for ‘the second floor’. In this book, we will use PRE to indicate a prefix in English translations.

We can use the following expressions to refer to the top or lowest floor. We add 呢 ni1 if we are currently at the specific floor and 嗰 go2 if we don’t.

Below are some alternative expressions for referring to the top or lowest floor. They are supplementary and won’t appear in the exercises or activities.

Here are the expressions for other floors in a building:

If the basement has more than one floor, we put the specific floor after 地庫 dei6 fu3 or 地牢 dei6 lou4.

To mean ‘to go up to the first floor, to go down the ground floor, etc.’, we use the verb 上去 soeng5 heoi3 (‘to go up’) or 落去 lok6 heoi3 (‘to go down’).

To ask what floor a shop or facility is on, we can use the question expressions 幾多樓 gei2 do1 lau2 / 幾樓 gei2 lau2 (‘what floor’), 邊層 bin1 cang4 (‘which floor’) or 第幾層 dai6 gei2 cang4 (‘what floor’). Note that we usually only use 幾 gei2 but not 幾多 gei2 do1 after 第 dai6.

To mean ‘this floor’ or ‘that floor’, we combine 呢 ni1 (‘this’) or 嗰 go2 (‘that’) with 層 cang4, but not 樓 lau2. 層 cang4 is a classifier itself so we don’t need to add a classifier.